


friends

by IceImagines



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Consent discussions, F/F, Getting Together, Implied Sexual Content, Makeouts, if you can call that flirting, ish, it's weird - Freeform, reluctant falling in love, sombra is an absolute mess of a person but its ok widow is too, tending to each others wounds but like in a gay way, what is a feeling?? i don't know her - olivia colomar 2076
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 22:25:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19343884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceImagines/pseuds/IceImagines
Summary: what the hell are we?





	friends

**Author's Note:**

> i don't remember when i started this. but i finished it during pride month and for that i am proud of myself
> 
> uhh trigger warning for mild body horror maybe? widow's physiology is. weird
> 
> enjoy and lmk what you think

Sombra has become good at keeping her thoughts to herself over the years. 

There‘s some habits you need leading the life Sombra does. She learned that the hard way. Information is power. For every inch you give, someone will take a mile from you. The more you allow people to know, the more helpless you make yourself. Just like in the fairytales Sombra distantly remembers reading as a child. Never tell a fairy your name, or you become theirs forever. 

Fairies may not be real, but Sombra has found that the stories weren‘t so far from the truth after all. 

So Olivia Colomar is dead. Nobody at Talon has even the slightest idea how old she actually is, or where exactly she‘s from. They don‘t know about her past with Los Muertos. They don‘t know about the fact that her whole family is dead. They don‘t even know what exactly her implants can do. She left it at a vague „they help me with hacking“ when she was asked about it before joining. She knows it makes them distrust her, but it‘s better than giving away more about herself. The intel she delivers is too good for them to pass up the opportunity of having her on their side, she knows that. She‘s threading a fine line between being too valuable to dispose of, and too dangerous to tolerate. 

But that‘s another thing she‘s become good at. The razor‘s edge she‘s spent almost a decade balancing on is familiar. She knows how to walk it without being cut. Knows how much pressure she can put on before it breaks the skin. 

So she keeps her thoughts to herself. Uses her finely crafted jokester persona to cover them up. Lies through her teeth a dozen times a day without batting an eyelash. 

It doesn‘t bother her that nothing about her is real. It‘s safer that way.

And besides, she‘s far from alone in it. Talon isn‘t exactly a meeting place of genuineness. 

Reaper pretends that he‘s oh-so-scary and self-assured, but security footage from his room shows him lying on his bed at night, surrounded by wafts of black smoke where he can‘t keep his skin together, pieces of bone and gnarled black flesh visible underneath. 

O‘Deorain takes every chance she gets to gloat and feel superior to everyone else, but Sombra has an attentive gaze and no amount of make-up hides the deep, dark circles under her mismatched eyes, her dry, chapped lips, the result of days spent awake in her laboratory without rest. 

Ogundimu at least believes in the things he‘s preaching, that much is true, but Sombra knows he‘d rather die than let anyone know he goes through a pack of high-dosed painkillers in a week because phantom pain from the arm he lost keeps him up all night. 

And Widowmaker....

Well. Perhaps it isn‘t entirely fair to mention Widowmaker in the same breath as all the others. She is nothing like them, after all. She‘s treated with almost as much reverence by the ordinary troops as a Council member, but Sombra realized quickly after joining Talon that it‘s less because she outranks them so much and more because they‘re simply afraid of her. 

It‘s not unreasonable by any means. The first time Sombra met Talon‘s crown jewel, it took her longer than she likes to admit to decide whether she, too, should be scared. There‘s something about the sheer otherness of the woman. Not just the strange grey-blue skin, the creepy spider tattoos, the knee length black hair that looks like it escaped from the set of that horror movie from decades ago where the girl crawls out of the antiquated TV set. It‘s that empty, dead stare from cold amber eyes. How she‘s always stiff as a statue, stands with her arms and legs perfectly straight, feet exactly parallel on the ground. Doesn‘t cross her legs when she sits. Sometimes doesn‘t seem to move for hours except for the unnaturally slow rise and fall of her chest. 

And then that look that she gets when she‘s about to put a bullet in someone‘s head. That‘s the scariest part of it all. The glint those dead eyes get for a split second, the ever-so-slight curl of her cold blue lips, the exhale after she‘s squeezed the trigger, barely audible but louder than it ever is at any other time. 

But Sombra decides, eventually, that she isn‘t afraid of Widowmaker. It doesn‘t take a genius to realize that she enjoys killing - doesn‘t just do it without any sort of guilty conscience, but actively gets a thrill from it, and Sombra would be lying if she said that wasn‘t off-putting, even repulsive to her at first. But she also realizes something else. 

The Widowmaker is not an aggressive or violent person. Not even in a suppressed, kept-in-check way like some of Talon‘s lower assets, the assassins that they have to keep heavily drugged to make sure they don‘t just rip everything in sight to shreds. Apart from those moments on missions, Widowmaker seems to have no natural pull towards violence at all. She‘s quiet. Flawlessly obedient. Efficient. The perfect human weapon, really. 

Sombra sees her constantly swarmed by Talon‘s doctors and scientists. Once, she sticks a landing when jumping off a rooftop during a mission and twists her ankle - anyone else would have broken every bone in their body, but that‘s not enough. She‘s escorted out of the hangar and straight into the medical wing, and after that, Sombra doesn‘t see her for a week or two. 

When she comes back, her ankle is fine, and her eyes are even duller than they were before. 

Sombra‘s read her file, of course. She has an idea of what they to do her down there, and she isn‘t really interested in learning more about it. What she‘s seen of Widowmaker‘s initial conditioning procedures was horrifying enough to last her for a lifetime. Almost enough to coax some pity for the woman out of her, but then again, Widowmaker doesn‘t seem like the type to want pity. Sombra doesn‘t even think she‘s particularly upset about how she‘s being treated, which is, of course, part of the point. She suspects it would be significantly harder to control an asset that hates its handlers than one that simply lacks the necessary emotional depth. 

Still, she wonders sometimes how it feels. To be that caged, to have one‘s world that reduced to a single thing that someone else chose for one. 

Does Widowmaker miss the daylight sometimes? Her room, or rather her cell, doesn‘t have windows, and she‘s usually deployed during the nighttime, when her sickly blue skin blends in easily with the environment. 

Does she remember how it feels to breathe with the lungs that her body grew? Hers were removed surgically years ago, replaced by a machine that takes in more oxygen, filters out toxic gases, even lets her breathe underwater. Sometimes, when they‘re sitting close together in the dropship, Sombra swears she hears it rattling in Widowmaker‘s chest. 

Does she feel the slightest spark of resentment for the people who did this to her? Or does she simply accept it when they cut her open and take her apart for the hundredth time? Is there anything that protests inside her when she‘s strapped to a polished steel stretcher, staring up at a blindingly white ceiling? 

Does she even feel the pain anymore?

She certainly makes it seem like she doesn‘t on missions. Gets right back up when she falls, ignoring scrapes and bruises all over. Doesn‘t flinch when she‘s struck, not even when someone‘s fist splits her lip or breaks her nose. Once, Sombra witnessed her breaking her arm, and she didn‘t bat an eyelash - just raised her rifle and pressed her eye to the scope and took the shot she had come for, even though the kickback from the famed Widow‘s Kiss turned a simple fracture into a thousandfold splintered bone. 

Sombra remembers sitting across from her in the dropship on the way back to base. Her arm was in a provisional sling, a whole team of surgeons surely waiting for her when she got back, ready to repair what was left of it, or maybe replace it with something else - she was already lacking most of her internal organs, what was one more bone? Sombra hadn‘t seen them giving her any painkillers, but Widowmaker sat there still as a statue anyway, breath its usual lethargic pace, amber eyes unblinking. 

Focused on her. 

Sombra stared back, trying to look tougher than she felt. There was something unsettling about Widowmaker‘s gaze. What was she looking for? A weakness? The best place to bury her bullet in when Sombra finally stepped too far out of line? Was she going over the motions of wrapping her hands around Sombra‘s throat in her head, pressing down until Sombra‘s eyes were dull and lifeless like her own? 

Sombra raised her chin as if in defiance. Didn‘t break the Widowmaker‘s gaze. Tried to make sense of what she was seeing. 

A part of her wanted to say something, just to see if she would get an answer. Tease her, maybe. Needle her like she does with everyone else, tickling their secrets out of them with featherlight, razor sharp touches. 

She couldn‘t think of a single thing to say. 

\-----------------

Volskaya happens a while later. Sombra takes every precaution, spends weeks planning every detail meticulously in advance. There‘s no way anyone‘s going to find out. 

The mission goes as expected. The alarm goes off at the set time. Sombra makes it into Volskaya‘s office. For such a powerful woman, she is easy to blackmail, easy to convince to give into Sombra‘s so clearly one-sided beneficial agreement. On the way back to the dropship, Sombra‘s mood couldn‘t be better. She‘s fully convinced everything worked out perfectly.

The moment she lays eyes on Widowmaker inside the ship, she realizes she knows, and feels her blood run cold. Widowmaker returns her stare with icy familiarity, no doubt spotting the panic that Sombra is struggling to keep from seeping into her expression. Seven red lenses from her helmet seem to be laughing in Sombra‘s face. 

The infrasight visor. How in the world could she forget the infrasight visor? Out of all the pitfalls she could have missed, it had be the most obvious one, the easiest one to take out. Inducing a malfunction would have been nothing compared to hacking Volskaya‘s security system. 

But Sombra didn‘t, and now, staring down Widowmaker in the ship, still cold from the air from outside that was let in through the hatch, she‘s sure she has about five seconds before the woman rats her out, has her apprehended, locked up, tortured, killed. 

Turned into something like Widowmaker. 

Sombra feels her blood pounding in her ears. She counts down the seconds. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. 

Nothing happens. 

Sombra holds her breath, waits for Widowmaker to say something, anything. But she doesn‘t. She just keeps looking at her with those odd yellow eyes, and then, a heartbeat later, averts her gaze, turns around and sits down in her seat. 

Sombra stands there, petrified. She can‘t believe it would be that easy. She didn‘t even have to bribe her, threaten her - not that she‘d know what to bribe or threaten a dead woman with. Widowmaker has to be waiting for something. There is no way Talon‘s lapdog will just let her get away with sabotaging such an important mission.

For the next two weeks, Sombra holds her breath. Every time an alert blinks in the corner of her augmented vision, she winces, expecting it to be her alarm system warning her that they‘re closing in on her quarters, preparing to take her out. She double and triple checks the translocators she has stashed in her safehouses. Translocating over such large distances is excruciatingly painful, but it won‘t kill her. Not like the machine guns of Talon‘s enforcers will. 

She never has to use them. They never close in on her quarters. Reaper doesn‘t regard her with more contempt than usual. After a month of nothing, Sombra slowly but surely has to realize that for some godforsaken reason she can‘t even begin to comprehend, Widowmaker has decided to keep her mouth shut. 

And out of all the fascinating, strange things about the woman, that has to be most astonishing one Sombra has witnessed. It goes against everything Widowmaker was created for. The perfect weapon, the most loyal follower Talon will ever have. And she actively kept the threat that‘s hiding amongst their ranks from them. She has to know what Sombra can do to the organization, should she want to - Widowmaker is brainwashed, but she isn‘t stupid. 

So why didn‘t she tell on her? 

Sombra works herself into an obsession over it. Spends nights digging through every file Talon has on the Widowmaker, looking for a clue, a reason. Nothing happens without a reason in this world. Not in some bullshit philosophical way that is supposed to make her feel better about what life has put her through. It‘s simply cause and effect. Every event has something leading up to it. A glitch. A missing cipher in the code. A burned out circuit. Something. 

She has to know what it is. She knows she‘ll never feel safe again otherwise. Widowmaker went from the most predictable piece on the chessboard Sombra has made of Talon to an utter wild card. Not understanding why she acted the way she did means Widowmaker can surprise her again. Means there‘s some variable in that metal-coated skull of hers that Sombra doesn‘t know. 

Sombra never went to school past first grade, but she‘s mathematically gifted enough to know that a single variable changes the entire outcome. 

It takes her months, and she almost expects herself to grow to resent Widowmaker because of it, adding to the mistrust that is essential for survival around someone who is less her own person and more a walking extension of someone else‘s will. For a time, Sombra even tries to will herself into hating her, but has to give up when she realizes that the woman doesn‘t even remotely return the sentiment. Her attitude towards Sombra hasn‘t changed since the Volskaya, definitely not towards the negative-

Though, perhaps, a bit in the other direction.

Sombra doesn‘t see it until one day she‘s making jokes at Reaper‘s expense in the kitchen while Widowmaker sits quietly in the corner as usual, and something catches Sombra‘s eye. She turns her head just in time to catch the receding traces of the upward quirk of Widowmaker‘s lip, and Sombra‘s heart almost stops. 

It‘s barely anything, but it changes everything. And Sombra is forced to realize something as she lies in bed that night, something that makes her want to curl up under the covers and sob into her pillow like she did when she was a little girl. 

She didn‘t miss a variable. She read the entire code wrong. 

There is no rational explanation for what Widowmaker did because it wasn‘t rational. 

That goes against the entire purpose she was created for. It‘s such an upheaval of everything Sombra knows about her that she didn‘t even stop to consider it. She was so caught up in frantically searching for Widowmaker‘s ulterior motives that the possibility of none existing didn‘t occur to her. But that doesn‘t exactly calm Sombra down. The danger of Talon somehow being onto her is much slimmer now, yes, but instead she‘s left with...

Not a chess piece, but a person. 

\-----------------

It becomes harder to ignore what they do to her once Sombra is forced to realize that. The idea that no matter how inhuman Talon‘s treatment of Widowmaker is, at least Widowmaker can‘t really feel it - can‘t really suffer from it - was a bit of a comfort for Sombra until now, something she could tell herself to soothe her conscience. 

But looking at Widowmaker like she‘s just a machine has become an impossibility, which makes the whole situation even more unnerving than it already is. Sombra understands machines. She knows how to handle them, how to act around them. They‘re safe. An environment entirely under her control. People are different. Had it not been essential for her survival at the time, Sombra never would‘ve joined an organization like Talon that is full of them, but now, she finds, she‘s in too deep to go back, and every time she looks at Widowmaker covered in scrapes and bruises after another rough mission, she‘s reminded that even if she could leave Talon - she couldn‘t leave the guilt behind with it. 

So she stays. And she finds that she dislikes it when Widowmaker is taken down to the lower levels, escorted out of the hangar by two of Moira‘s white-clad assistants. Dislikes how they touch her like they would a non-sentient robot. Dislikes her absence in the days after, glaringly sharp and loud where Sombra was able to ignore it before. But what she dislikes most is the lack of even a shimmer of life in Widowmaker‘s eyes upon her return. How her skin seems more grey than blue. How her muscles tremble, like she‘s unable to control her own strength, dropping a small plastic spoon to the floor on one occasion and crushing an entire glass on accident on another. 

Sombra doesn‘t like any of it. So she gets into the habit of trying to prevent it, without even noticing what she‘s doing at first, until Reaper points out to her that she‘s been spending uncharacteristic amounts of time during missions cleaning up after Widowmaker and making sure she encounters as little resistance as possible. She laughs him off and tells herself she‘ll stop doing it. 

She doesn‘t stop doing it. And starts doing more instead. One day, Widowmaker walks into the dropship with a huge bleeding gash across her bare back, and before Sombra can stop herself, she‘s suddenly sitting next to her with a first aid kit, cleaning up the wound and quietly cursing in Spanish, about Widowmaker‘s carelessness, about the artificial blood that is staining her gloves, about her own stupidity. She doesn‘t need to be doing this. There‘s plenty of doctors that will do a better job than she can. 

But she knows, deep down, that those doctors would take Widowmaker away again. And for all the emptiness in the woman‘s gaze, she thinks that Widowmaker doesn‘t want that to happen either.

She doesn‘t wince when Sombra starts to stitch up the wound as best as she can. Sombra isn‘t surprised anymore, even though she knows from her own experience how much this hurts. Widowmaker‘s ribs are visible beneath blue skin, her back exposed by the diamond cut out in that ridiculous suit they make her wear. Slowly, much too slowly, they fall and rise underneath Sombra‘s steady hands as she works. 

It occurs to her that she doesn‘t think she‘s ever been this close to Widowmaker, physically. Her skin is cool to the touch, even through Sombra‘s gloves. The blood replacement fluid is, too. It‘s mostly clear with a blueish shimmer, viscous, and smells like chemicals instead of copper. Some of the larger puddles seem to fizzle weakly with some sort of electricity - nanobots, Sombra guesses. 

It‘s creepy, honestly. Sombra herself has enough machinery fused to her body, but it‘s one thing to have an internal computer and a whole different thing to just... not have organs. She‘s read Widowmaker‘s file. Pretty much all that she‘s left with is a digestive system that barely sees use because she gets all her nutrients from liquid weekly injections, and a heavily modified liver that has been turned into mostly just a hub for the nanobots in her blood. No kidneys, no reproductive system, no lungs, and most importantly, no heart. Literally. She has a pump implanted there instead, equipped to deal better with the different consistency of the blood replacement and with the enormous strain her body undergoes on missions. It beats with a precise, unwavering rhythm of four beats per minute. It won‘t ever become sick. It won‘t ever fail or give out. It doesn‘t have a heat signature. It‘s the epitome of efficiency. 

And most would probably consider it oddly fitting, Sombra thinks to herself as she finishes up the stitches on Widowmaker‘s back. A cold-blooded, heartless killer, in the most literal sense of the word. 

But she doesn‘t seem quite so heartless when she averts her gaze and murmurs a quiet thank you. The way her golden eyes flicker gives her away. She‘s nervous, Sombra realizes, and it barely surprises her anymore. 

„Don‘t worry“, she sighs as she gets up. „I won‘t tell anyone.“

She raises her hand automatically to rest it on Widowmaker‘s shoulder in a comforting gesture, but freezes before she can actually touch her. Widowmaker looks up to meet her gaze, and for a few seconds, they just silently stare at each other, Sombra‘s hand still hovering between them. 

Sombra clears her throat. „Anyway. Just- just try to be a little more careful, _ay?_ I can only patch you up so many times before Moira notices.“ 

She spends over half an hour sitting in her computer chair later trying to make sense of what just happened, and then another half an hour frantically reminding herself that it won‘t happen again - she‘s not that stupid, not that careless. 

But then during the next mission Widowmaker gets thrown against a wall, cracks her visor and almost her skull as well, and before Sombra knows it, she‘s cleaning and bandaging the laceration above Widowmaker‘s brow, wipes the artificial blood from her face, and smuggles the broken visor into her quarters to repair it by herself to keep Widowmaker‘s handlers from noticing. 

„You‘re lucky you have those medbots in your blood“, she tells Widowmaker as she ties the bandage, inches from her face, „in a day or two this should be healed up. If you stay in your room they‘ll barely notice.“ 

Widowmaker just looks at her, silently, and Sombra wonders whether she‘s as confused by this as Sombra herself. 

The next time it‘s a broken finger that Sombra crudely has to set, praying to saints that she hasn‘t worshipped since before the Omnic Crisis that she‘s doing it right and it will heal correctly. It does, and a week later she spends an hour picking tiny pieces of stone and glass out of Widowmaker‘s palms after she took a nasty fall and caught herself on her hands. 

The fourth or so time, Sombra just sighs and accepts that apparently, this is just what she does now. She curses herself for it often enough, uncomfortably aware of every risk of going behind Talon‘s backs by keeping the state of their asset from them, but she finds that the thought of having to stand by and let Widow be dragged off to Moira disgusts her more. 

The lesser of two evils, she tells herself, but that‘s a lie, too, because her breath hitches the first time Widowmaker tentatively reaches out and her fingertips brush her arm as she breathes a soft „merci“ and Sombra would laugh at the way her unfairly long, dark eyelashes flutter against her cheeks if she wasn‘t so painfully aware that Widowmaker isn‘t trying to be coy - that shyness is all her. 

With dread, Sombra realizes that it‘s adorable. 

Widowmaker ends up spending more and more time in Sombra‘s company. It‘s hard to notice at first - she‘s being subtle about it - but after a few weeks, there‘s no more excuses for Widowmaker constantly lurking around the same room as Sombra, including her own quarters. She barely ever speaks, just watches her with those golden eyes. It‘s a little unsettling at first and Sombra doesn‘t know what to do about it, especially once she realizes that it doesn‘t _bother_ her, but it feels like it _should_ bother her. 

She wants to shoo Widowmaker away, except she doesn‘t, really. Which is concerning. Very much so. But she hates the thought of the look Widowmaker would have on her face if Sombra told her to get out - the tiny crease between her brows, the ever so slightly widened eyes, the most minimal and yet most obvious expression of hurt. 

So Sombra sits her down one day, and it‘s awkward because she can‘t help but wonder if she‘s belittling her, and Widowmaker just seems altogether confused by the whole thing. But Sombra has to say something. So when they‘re both sitting on her bed, as far away from each other as possible, Sombra does her best to hold Widowmakers gaze and sound calm and collected when she starts speaking. 

„So, you‘ve been... hanging around me a lot recently.“ 

That‘s off to a great start. She groans internally.

„More than before, I mean. Or. More than with anyone else. And I, uh, don‘t quite understand why.“ The words stumble over each other as she forces them across her tongue. Talking has always come naturally to her, second only to handling machines, but now she finds she‘s barely able to form a coherent sentence. 

She‘s still trying to solve the mystery of what‘s wrong with her all of a sudden when she realizes that Widowmaker has kept silent, still simply looking at her. Sombra clears her throat.

„Can you maybe. Uh. Explain.“ 

Widowmaker gives a tiny shrug with one shoulder. She‘s wearing a black turtleneck sweater, the precise opposite of her mission catsuit. Sombra catches herself thinking that it looks much nicer on her. 

„I like being around you“, she says in that soft voice of hers. 

„Why...?“

„I don‘t know.“ She pauses. „You‘re not like everyone else in Talon, you know. Everyone else here believes in our mission with all their being, or is too scared too leave. Some of them are even scared of me. But you... you don‘t care about Talon at all, do you?“

Sombra regards her carefully, searches her eyes for signs of deception. Is this a trap? Is she going to rat her out to her superiors the moment Sombra gives an answer that the Council wouldn‘t like?

But she remembers that they‘ve been in this situation before, and Widowmaker still hasn‘t said a word to anyone about Volskaya. If she wanted to report Sombra, she would have done it a long time ago. 

Sombra relaxes a little. „No. I don‘t“, she answers truthfully. 

Widowmaker just nods like she expected it. Sombra can‘t help but frown.

„Doesn‘t that bother you? I mean, you‘re...“ Her sentence trails off, _brainwashed to be loyal to Talon_ still on her tongue. Suddenly she feels awful for almost saying it. 

For half a second, Widowmaker almost smiles. „I have orders. But... you can‘t make someone believe in something. Dr. O‘Deorain doesn‘t understand that.“ 

Her words carry a weight that Sombra immediately feels settling on her shoulders, heavy as lead. Normally she would be delighted at finding out a secret like that, but the knowledge just feels like a burden now. She knows that if Moira found out about any of this, Widowmaker would be sure to suffer for it, and it would be Sombra‘s fault. 

She doesn‘t want that. 

Furtively, she tries to collect herself. „So, you _like me_ , not just in spite of me betraying the organization you work for, but _because of it?_ “ 

„I... yes. I think. I don‘t know.“ Widowmaker averts her gaze. „Talon has been... more interesting since you joined us.“ She sounds like she‘s having difficulty finding the correct words. „Everyone else here is dreadfully predictable. But you surprise me. With almost everything you do.“ 

They spend a few more of Widowmaker‘s slow heartbeats simply looking at each other, staring each other down, and Sombra can see the wheels turning behind Widowmaker‘s eyes - she‘s not stupid, and she can think for herself, Sombra realized that a long time ago. And it dawns on her now that Widowmaker is trying to understand her just as much as Sombra is trying to understand Widowmaker. 

„You know“, Sombra says finally, „I think I could get used to you always hanging around me.“ 

Her heart skips a dangerous beat when the corner of Widowmaker‘s mouth quirks up.

\-----------------

They develop a strange sort of companionship after that, fall into a rhythm with their interactions. Sombra gets used to Widowmaker‘s constant presence, then grows to enjoy it. She starts calling her _araña_ instead of her callsign - it‘s less of a mouthful, and it seems more genuine somehow. Neither Widowmaker nor Amélie feels quite right, so Sombra comes up with her own thing. Widow looks startled the first time Sombra says it, but it‘s the good kind of startled. The kind that encourages her to do it more often. 

Sombra keeps secretly tending to Widow‘s injuries after missions. Doing it has long since stopped bothering her, and she knows Widow is grateful, more so than she can bring herself to say. She shows her appreciation in different ways, like bringing Sombra coffee into her room at one in the morning without being asked, or playing assistant when Sombra is working on a technical gadget. Once, Sombra returns from a mission, dead tired, to find her whole room clean and her bed made. Widow doesn‘t say anything, but Sombra knows it was her, though she doesn‘t know why. But what she does know is that looking at the meticulous way the pillows on her bed have been arranged makes her heart flutter oddly in her chest, in a way it most definitely shouldn‘t. 

For every one of their interactions, Sombra finds herself contemplating whether it‘s worth it, weighing the odds against one another: her position with Talon for the coffee at night, the safety and integrity of her life‘s work for that flutter in her chest. It‘s funny, really. Ridiculous. Sombra knows exactly what conclusion she should arrive at. But she finds that she‘s grown attached to the late-night coffees and her fluttering heart. 

So she pushes it away for a little bit longer. Just once, she wants to keep ignoring the consequences for a few weeks more - that‘s what she tells herself.

But weeks turn into months, and then one day, a mission goes badly. Sombra barely escapes a blast from a grenade, but some of the splinters catch her in the leg, and one grazes her face and leaves a nasty, bleeding gash across her cheek. 

Every bone in her body hurts when she limps back into the dropship, already dreading the hours it will take her to remove the shrapnel from her leg, but then Widow is suddenly there, first aid kit in hand, and she kneels in front of her and starts pulling out the splinters one by one. Sombra watches her and through the thick fog of pain that seems to obfuscate her thoughts she thinks how odd all this is. Talon‘s emotionless human weapon is bandaging up her injured leg. And when the knot is secure, she sits up and starts cleaning the cut on Sombra‘s cheek. Her hands are cold, but it helps numb the pain. Sombra leans her cheek into her palm subconsciously, and Widow doesn‘t move away. 

„You always tell me to be more careful“, she says softly as she‘s carefully wiping drops of blood from Sombra‘s face, dangerously close to her mouth. „Why aren‘t you more careful for once, hm?“ 

Sombra manages to crack a smile. „Then I wouldn‘t get the chance to have you patch me up. My knight in shining armor.“ 

She‘s joking, pretty clearly, as far as she‘s aware, but something in Widow‘s eyes goes soft at the words. She‘s silent for a few moments before asking, uncertainty in her voice:

„Sombra, can I... can I hug you?“

Sombra just stares at her for several seconds, completely dumbfounded, before nodding. And Widow reaches out and pulls her in, infinitely gently, like she‘s afraid to break her. Her arms wrap around her back and one hand comes up to cradle Sombra‘s head, and Sombra can‘t help but dazedly think that for someone as bony as Widow, with the body temperature of a corpse on top, she gives really, really good hugs. 

„I could get used to this too“, she mutters into Widow‘s collarbone. She doesn‘t get a reply, but she swears she can feel Widow holding her just a little bit tighter. 

That first time seems to act as an icebreaker, of sorts. Widow becomes much more freely giving with her affections, the post-mission hugs becoming a regularity before she starts doing it around base as well. With the hugs come smaller, casual touches, the brush of a shoulder against shoulder, a hand resting briefly on her arm, hair tucked behind Sombra‘s ear with a delicate blue finger. The chill of Widow‘s skin becomes familiarity. 

The first few times, Sombra flinches instinctively, looks around for someone that might be watching them, but if anyone notices, they don‘t seem to care. She‘s glad. She would rather not have to go without Widow‘s small admissions of affection again, though it makes her feel a little ashamed. 

One night they‘re sitting on the couch in one of Talon‘s common rooms that see little use, an ancient spy movie playing on the equally ancient TV, pressed much too close together for a woman who feels nothing and a woman who manipulates people like her for fun. Sombra knows it‘s between two and three am, but only because her internal computer means she always knows the exact time and date down to the second. She would‘ve lost track of time entirely otherwise, busy running her fingers through Widow‘s endless, inky black hair, spilling over Sombra‘s thighs and down to the floor where Widow‘s head is resting in her lap. Neither of them has said a word in hours, but the silence isn‘t uncomfortable, and that‘s perhaps the most incredible part of it all.

Sombra remembers her breath catching in her throat when Widow laid her head in her lap like it was nothing earlier, and how she sat there stiffly and afraid to move for an embarrassingly long time before she dared to relax again, and it seems odd that now she wishes Widow would stay there like that forever.

„ _Araña?_ “, Sombra whispers eventually, even though neither of them cares about what is being said in the movie. „Are we friends now?“ 

Widow slowly opens her golden eyes, blinking up at Sombra. „Do you want us to be friends?“

Oddly enough, Sombra‘s first thought is _no, no, I don‘t want to be your friend_. But before she has the time to think more about what she wants from Widow instead, she hastily replies, perhaps a bit too defiantly: „Well, do _you?_ “ 

Widow smiles. She‘s been doing that more and more often recently. 

„Yes“, she says simply, and Sombra has to swallow the feeling that wells up from deep within her down. 

„Then we‘re friends.“

Widow closes her eyes again, seemingly satisfied. Sombra isn‘t, and deep down, she knows why, but she isn‘t ready to admit it, not to herself, and least of all to Widow. 

_Friends_ , she repeats in her mind as she offers Widow her hand to help her up from where‘s she‘s fallen to the ground during a mission and Widow‘s hand lingers in hers for a tantalizing second longer than it has to.

_Friends_ , as she grins in Moira‘s face while hacking into her phone to mess up her schedule and make her miss Widow‘s appointment the next week. 

_Friends_ , as Widow spends an hour meticulously shaving her head where her hair has grown too long and ends up making it the neatest it has ever been. 

_Friends_ , as they‘re trapped in a bunker in a snowstorm and find out the hard way that Widow might not feel the cold, but she‘s not unaffected by it. As Sombra spends more than twelve hours straight holding her as close as possible, trying to share her warmth with her before she freezes to death. 

_Friends_ , as Widow holds her back by her wrist before she leaves for a particularly risky assignment, pulls her in and whispers in her ear to be careful, and then something in French, her voice close to breaking. Sombra has the French translated later. It means _Please don‘t leave me._

And _friends_ when she returns, and Widow won‘t let go of her for hours, and when she thinks Sombra isn‘t looking, Sombra catches her wiping away a single tear. 

Sombra didn‘t even know she could cry. 

That night, Widow doesn‘t leave her room. When it‘s almost dark except for a single holoscreen still glowing violet above Sombra‘s desk, she turns to Sombra, still pressed up against her side. Her eyes are wide, and her bottom lip is trapped between her teeth. Belatedly, Sombra realizes she‘s nervous. 

„Sombra?“ 

Widow‘s voice sounds small. She‘s clearly terrified, or whatever that means for her, and that fact alone has Sombra more alarmed than she‘s willing to show. She covers it up with an encouraging smile. 

Widow takes a deep breath. 

„Can I kiss you?“ 

The question hits Sombra like a sledgehammer. Knocks the air straight out of her. She stares at Widow with wide eyes, heart beating painfully against her ribs, mind racing with innumerable questions, but one more than any others:

What is her answer?

After an entirely too long time, she opens her mouth.

„I... I don‘t know. I‘m sorry.“ 

She moves, untangling herself from Widow and getting up off the bed. Widow watches her, her expression back to neutral, but Sombra knows by now what that means. It‘s a cover up for something else. The stronger the feeling, the smoother the mask. 

Sombra feels her stomach lurch at the thought of how hurt Widow probably is, but she can‘t give her an answer. Not now. Not like this. Her own cowardice makes her sick, but still she backs out of the room, like she‘s fleeing from danger - like a deer in headlights out of her own room, unable to stand the presence of the poor, lost creature sitting on her plush purple comforter any longer. 

„I‘ll... I‘ll think about it, okay?“, is all she manages to get out before she closes the door behind her.

Outside, she leans against the hallway wall and claps her hands over her mouth. She has to fight to hold back the treacherous tears welling up behind her eyes. 

She‘s such an idiot. Such a goddamn idiot. She‘ll be lucky if Widow ever wants to speak to her again. 

Over two terrabytes of RAM fused to her brain and yet a single question is too much for her to process. 

She hides from Widow for almost two weeks, doing her very best to avoid her wherever she can. It makes her feel awful, but she needs time to think. Because she still doesn‘t have an answer, and it‘s killing her inside a little. The largest part of her knows that she should have just said no, for so many reasons she doesn‘t even bother listing them all to herself. But there‘s another, smaller, but more insistent part of her that keeps nagging at her. She doesn‘t want to hear what it‘s saying, but it‘s harder to ignore as time passes.

_But that‘s not what you really want, is it?_

She spends night after night lying awake, tossing and turning and trying to get her thoughts in order. 

She does her assignments without her usual focus and dedication, too distracted to care about what she‘s doing.

She falls on the treadmill and bruises her knee because she wasn‘t paying attention, spills coffee on her hand in the morning, and accidentally blows up a translocator while trying to fix it. Then she spends about an hour lying on the desk crying in the midst of broken machinery parts and still sparking cables. 

When the tears finally stop flowing, she sits up slowly and wipes the stains away from her cheeks. 

She makes up her mind. 

„Yes“, she says when she opens the door to Widow‘s room and steps inside. Widow looks up at her from where she was lying on her bed, empty stare fixed on the white ceiling. She doesn‘t look angry, Sombra notes with some surprise as well as relief. Just confused. 

„What?“

Sombra walks over to the bed and sits down next to Widow. „I thought about it. About what you asked me the other night.“

Slowly, Widow sits up, her gaze settling on Sombra‘s. She looks a little nervous again, but now there‘s something else there. Something Sombra could almost mistake for excitement. 

„Yes“, she repeats. „You can kiss me.“ 

Widow opens her mouth, then closes it again. If she had blood, she‘d probably be blushing right now. 

„Um. Now?“

Sombra chuckles. „Yes, _tonta_. Now. If you want to.“ 

Widow reaches out and brushes some stray hair behind Sombra‘s ear. Her hand lingers on Sombra‘s cheek after that, and slowly, she starts inching closer. Sombra‘s heart is racing again. It‘s embarrassing - this is just going to be a kiss, she tells herself. Just a kiss. Nothing special. 

But Widow‘s face is inches from hers, and her eyes flutter closed. Sombra‘s do, too. 

Then Widow closes the last distance and presses her lips to Sombra‘s, and all of a sudden Sombra‘s world is reduced to the thumping of her own heart in her ears, the tiny sigh Widow lets out almost immediately like all the tension in the world has fallen off her shoulders, and the softness of her mouth. Her lips are cool like the rest of her, and she tastes a little like ashes. 

Unsurprisingly, in hindsight, it doesn‘t end up being just the one kiss. This time, it‘s Sombra who doesn‘t leave Widow‘s room, just as her lips barely leave Widow‘s for the rest of the night. It makes her feel silly, how much she suddenly wants this after she spent two weeks crying about it - literally. Their kisses are tentative at first, almost shy, and more than a little awkward. Sombra knows it‘s been years since Widow could have kissed anyone, but this is more than just rustiness. It‘s like their hands don‘t quite know how to touch each other, don‘t know where the other begins and ends. Like they‘re still mapping each other out. 

But Sombra learns. Learns the exact rhythm of Widow‘s artificial heart. Learns the taste of her mouth. Learns the tremble of her hands where they come up to rest on her hips, shy like they‘re teenagers fooling around behind their parents‘ backs, like they‘ve only learned about this from TV and romantic books. 

Widow doesn‘t leave Sombra much time to think about how odd that is, though. And, she realizes when they finally grow weary and slide under the covers together - white linen, Talon standard issue, not very soft but they smell like Widow - she doesn‘t have to. 

This is enough. This is more than enough. 

\-----------------

The kisses become a habit like the hugs did before. They have to be even more careful now, but it‘s worth it - Sombra has long since decided that. 

They don‘t talk about what they are. Both of them know it would be no good. All they have is what is now. That has to be enough. Sombra isn‘t sure it would have been enough for the person she was just a year ago, but she finds she isn‘t really missing anything when she‘s pressed up against Widow under the covers at night or steals a kiss between missions. 

Widow doesn‘t have to ask to kiss her every time anymore. 

It takes them months until they do more, weeks of careful, awkward negotiation, though thankful no burned hands and ruined technical gadgets this time. Sombra doesn‘t recall ever having had to discuss sex at such length in advance, but once again, for some reason it doesn‘t bother her. 

Once again, it‘s worth it when the negotiations come to an end. Widow is a good lover, though most would never expect it; attentive, caring, devoted. And she is beautiful, but Sombra knew that already. She teases her sometimes about looking like the horror movie girl that crawled out of the TV set. Widow doesn‘t understand the reference, and Sombra promises to show her _The Ring_ sometime. 

They hide from Talon, and do it well. Sombra is positive no one knows about them, and though the edge of fear remains, she is confident in her abilities to go unnoticed. If nothing else, she‘s always been good at that. 

She‘s been through too much for the fear to add a thrill to it all, but the same things have taught her to live with it. It‘s a scary world out there. She‘s lucky to have something to hold onto in the midst of it all. 

There‘s just one question that she still has on her mind. 

„Why didn‘t you tell on me?“, Sombra asks her halfway through a yawn one night when the sweat is still cooling on their bodies. „After Volskaya.“

Widow, head resting on Sombra‘s shoulder, shrugs a little. „They would have killed you. I wouldn‘t have liked that.“

Sombra is silent for a moment before breaking out into a fit of giggles. Widow throws her an odd glance. 

„What is so funny?“

„Nothing, it‘s just that- I couldn‘t figure it out at the time and it seriously messed with my head. Made completely paranoid for a month or so. I kept trying to find your sinister ulterior motives. It‘s funny that it was that simple all along.“ 

„Simple for you, maybe,“ Widow grumbles, but Sombra can tell she isn‘t actually angry. Sombra grins and pokes her shoulder with her long-nailed finger. 

„So you always had a weakness for me, huh?“ 

Widow just snorts. „I do not have a _weakness_. For you, or anything else.“ 

„Well, you sure sounded like you did until ten minutes ago.“

They stare at each other for a few seconds before both of them start laughing at the same time. Sombra clutches at Widow‘s shoulders to steady herself as her body quakes, and even as she wipes tears of laughter from her eyes she can‘t help but think that Widow‘s muffled giggles where her face is buried in Sombra‘s neck are the most beautiful sound she‘s ever heard. 

„Sombra“, Widow whispers to her after they‘ve calmed down, „isn‘t this strange? This... us?“

Sombra chuckles again, a little hoarse, and snuggles closer to her. „Yeah. But you and me, we‘re strange people, _araña._ “ 

„Does that bother you?“ Widow doesn‘t sound nervous anymore, but her gaze is attentive, searching for a hint of deceptiveness in Sombra‘s gaze. 

Sombra‘s confident to say she won‘t find any when she replies. 

„No. Not even a little bit.“

**Author's Note:**

> translations:
> 
> araña - spider
> 
> tonta - silly


End file.
